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Though any player would love to play alongside Lionel Messi, he did not get along with some of his teammates due to a multitude of reasons.
Football is a team sport. No matter how good the individuals that constitute a team are, if they are not bound together tightly as a unit, then things are not likely to work out in their favour. In order for a team to come together, the players should be able to work with each other and also complement each other's playing styles.
Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest footballer of all time. He has spent his entire club career at Barcelona and has played alongside some of the finest footballers we have seen in the modern era. Barcelona are one of the biggest clubs in the world and they've never had any shortage of top-quality personnel.
However, Lionel Messi's time with the Argentinian national side has been a bit frustrating. There are teammates that the 33-year-old has had problems getting along with for a variety of reasons. Let's take a look at five teammates Lionel Messi just did not get along with.
5 teammates Lionel Messi did not get along with
#5 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
It would be unfair to say that there is bad blood between Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Lionel Messi. The Swede definitely had a problem with then Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola and he has stated the same in his autobiography.
It is said that when Zlatan Ibrahimovic was at Barcelona, Lionel Messi wanted to be the central striker. Even though Ibrahimovic enjoyed a prolific spell in front of goal in the 2009/10 season, Pep Guardiola often chose to go with the attacking trio of Pedro, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi.
Speaking on French television channel Telefoot, former Barcelona marketing director Marc Ingla once admitted that Messi and Zlatan did not get along. He said:
“Why it did not work for Ibra at Barca? Zlatan is a beast, a machine – but he was next to another machine, smaller. Ibrahimovic was too static, Messi needed more space. Zlatan took up too much of it. There was a bit of friction, I think.”
#4 David Villa
Flowing from the narrative that shrouded Zlatan's and Messi's time together, the latter would have found himself in an unfavourable environment once again when David Villa was signed by Barcelona. David Villa was arguably the best striker in world football at the time but this time it was the Spaniard who had to shift positions.
Not that it stopped Barcelona from being the most dominant force in Europe at the time but David Villa was eventually sold as Messi was always going to take over at the top. Though Villa has clarified that he never had any problems with Messi, the duo did get into a clash on the football pitch once.
In the 2012-13 season, Lionel Messi could not contain his temper after David Villa failed to pick him out in a scoring position. He lashed out at his teammate in front of everyone and it was not a great look for either of the players or the club.
That being said, the fact that Messi and David Villa did not get along had more to do with the fact that they just didn't fit together stylistically as both of them wanted to be central strikers.
#3 Paulo Dybala
Yet another teammate that Lionel Messi just does not get along with because they're too similar in style. Just like Messi, Dybala is a left-footed attacker who operates centrally and likes to drift to the right flank and cut in from there.
For this exact reason, it is difficult to field Lionel Messi and Paulo Dybala together as one of them will need to be played out of position. And when Lionel Messi is in your team, no matter who you are, you are likely to get the raw end of the deal as Paulo Dybala found out.
Despite being one of the most talented players of his generation, Paulo Dybala hasn't featured nearly as much for Argentine as he or anyone would have liked.
#2 Cristian Tello
In 2015, a few reports claimed that Lionel Messi enjoyed bullying some of his teammates. It was claimed that what went down in the Barcelona dressing room was never spoken about publicly because there was a Mafia style 'omerta', also known as an oath of silence.
The reports claimed that Lionel Messi used to harass young forward Cristian Tello and has even left him in tears after telling him things like. "What are you doing? You're new here, and you're nobody!" and "Pass me the ball, you're here to play for me."
It is also claimed that because of Messi's animosity towards him, Tello was reportedly ostracized in the Barcelona dressing room once he broke onto the first team scene and players just outright blanked him.
#1 Mauro Icardi
Mauro Icardi is one of the best strikers to have emerged from Argentine in recent times. However, he has hardly featured for the national side and it reportedly has a lot to do with a well-known scandal that involves Icardi and another Argentinian teammate Maxi Lopez.
Maxi Lopez was married to Wanda Nara and they had three kids together. Icardi and Maxi Lopez were also teammates and friends at Sampdoria but eventually, the former got involved in a romantic relationship with the latter's wife.
Wanda then married Mauro Icardi and reports suggest that this did not go down well with Lionel Messi and the rest of his Argentinian teammates. Despite performing well for his club, even now Icardi hardly ever gets called up to the national side.
